This invention relates to wireless telecommunication terminals, and, in particular, to the provision of call coverage paths.
In prior art business telecommunications switching systems, call coverage groups are well known. A call coverage group allows a list of telephones to be stored within the switching system to handle calls for a telephone of a principal. When the switching system receives a call for the principal""s telephone and the principal""s telephone does not answer, the switching system attempts to connect the calling party with the first telephone in the call coverage telephone group. If the first telephone is unavailable, then the second telephone in the call coverage group is selected. In the prior art, the call coverage groups are administered manually.
The prior art call coverage groups have functioned well with wired telephone sets and wireless telephones where the wireless telephone was a second telephone set for a user. In addition, prior art call coverage groups and their administration have functioned well for the traditional business environments where an employee is assigned a desk or a specific location and performs their principal work function at that telephone or location. For example, the traditional environment is for a principal to have a telephone and for the first telephone in the call coverage path of the principal""s telephone to be the principal""s secretary. The traditional environment is slowly changing. In the emerging business environment, individuals do not have a wired telephone but rather they have a wireless telephone which they carry with them at all times and which is their only telephone set. In addition, employees during the course of a day perform many functions at different locations. For example, a principal""s secretary may vary with the time of day.
The foregoing problems are solved, and a technical advance is achieved by an apparatus and method in which a wireless terminal is dynamically placed into a call coverage group based on the location of the wireless terminal. Similarly, a wireless terminal is dynamically removed from a call coverage group on the basis of the location of the wireless terminal. In addition, within a call coverage group, the position of a wireless terminal that is in communication with an auxiliary desktop unit is determined by a preassigned position within the call coverage group of the auxiliary desktop unit. The wireless terminal in communication with the auxiliary desktop unit is always assigned this preassigned location in the call coverage group. Advantageously, other call coverage groups that are based on geographical location and where the wireless terminal is not communication with an auxiliary desktop unit have wireless terminals assigned into the call coverage path group based on a predefined algorithm.
Other and further aspects of the present invention will become apparent during the course of the following description and by reference to the accompanying drawing.